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Some people follow the news the way others follow National Football League, or Baseball. Individuals who watch cable news networks consume more news than those who watch local news networks.¹ As of 2023 television is taking a back seat in news consumption from digital platforms such as smart phones and tablets; 32% of Americans often get news from television while 56% from digital devices, 16% for radio and 9% for print .²

Constant exposure to news, or what I like to think of as persistently reported negative events, tends to raise stress levels. If it goes too far, this can even exacerbate or create mental health challenges. In the article, “Media overload is hurting our mental health” Charlotte Huff reports on many of the ways media is creating increased stress or leading to mental health challenges³. This article includes new language that popped up during the COVID-19 pandemic to include, “doom scrolling,” “headline anxiety,” and “headline stress disorder“. Fortunately, there are solutions. Three notable solutions from the article include turning off notifications, limiting social media exposure to fifteen minutes at a time, and adding tech free times to one’s day. 

In my own estimation, being a news consumer does not make you a better citizen. It may increase your stress levels, add mental health challenges, and decrease your efficacy in everyday life, whether that is playing with your children, engaging with friends or family, or being productive at work. 

Of course there are counter arguments. 

Argument: Being informed helps a person know who they should vote for. Response: Consuming endless news won’t impact your voting decisions. Spending an hour to learn about a candidate should be enough to know which person best represents you. Most people know who they are voting for before they vote. 

Argument: National politics are important. Response: National politics are important but if your not doing something beyond voting like: campaigning, protesting, writing letters, amplifying social media posts which draw attention to issues, then you are not affecting national politics. Reading the news does not impact the world, it only impacts you. 

Consuming news often gives the feeling of being informed and contributing to society. News is more often the articulation of a point of view surrounding a set of events, rather than the establishment of what has occurred. 

Cable news which focuses on single news stories in a twenty-four-hour period are often focused on sensational events which are meant to emotionally charge, making it seem like these are the most central issues in our lives. This is to shift societal perspectives on issues like: guns, abortion, or gender. 

While these are important issues which should be discussed, the cable news does not create a sense of discourse which informs, deepens understanding, or improves the quality of our lives. In general, by focusing on these issues which affect a limited number of the population it can detract from other serious issues.

Instead of consuming the news it may be more helpful to think about issues you care deeply about. Get involved in these issues locally and try to affect change where you live. Read books and articles which deepen your understanding of the issue. By understanding an issue deeply, you will be able to think of ways you can act in your communities or personal life to affect change. 

Sustainability is about building a life which is healthy and rewarding. Building a healthy and rewarding life can be difficult and the distractions are many. Consuming the news will not necessarily improve your life, it may worsen it. Sustainability is about building strong communities which enrich and support the lives within it. Sustainability is about protecting the weakest among us, so they too can live enriching lives. Ultimately, consuming too much news is not a sustainable activity and has no influence on you or your community in a positive way. Instead, utilize the news to be informed and act but don’t rely on it to change the world around you. 

I have added a document called Philosophy and Development of Sustainable Lives to the website. This document outlines the philosophical backdrop for Sustainable Lives and development of the ideas being worked on or planned for in the future.

It can be found here.

As I was coming into the ideas which evolved into Sustainable Lives, I started playing around with the idea of a profit non-profit business model. I liked the idea of 0 profit Capitalism as an alternative to contemporary models of Capitalism.

I remember long conversations with Tom, my God Father who later became my uncle through marriage. Tom became an agricultural worker picking apples and trimming trees but was educated in business and so retained interest in business concepts.

Tom lent me this book Banker to the Poor which really helped solidify the idea of Sustainable Lives. Since, I have read each of Yunus’ books and intend to find ways to implement social business and solve poverty myself.

Yunus didn’t have some grand plan to do the work he has done. One day – it simply dawned on him that poor people had loans with interest they would never be able to repay that amounted to the bit of cash he had in his pocket. (These are my words, but essentially this was the start of micro finance. Which lead to social business: a business which is owned by, provides services to or employs the poor.)

His work with the poor and Gramen Bank received him and the bank the Nobel Peace Prize.

His subsequent work in three additional books outlines a path forward for those who wish to take up the cause of social business and solve problems of poverty through entrepreneurship by the poor and for the poor.

It lists countless numbers of individuals who have taken up social business by creating financial institutions, trust funds, entrepreneurial incubators – all for which believe that the poor are capable of creating the solutions to overcome their poverty.

If you want peace and prosperity for all, solve poverty. If you want to solve poverty design a world in which the poor can raise themselves up.

Yunus’ work is fundamental in the work to overcome poverty and will only aid as a catalyst toward a better future for all of humanity.

 

I have been developing Sustainable Lives for many years. This website is the first public expression of an idea which draw from a lot of different disciplines and the work of a lot of people attempting to solve some of the worlds most difficult problems.    The resources page is the most active part of this site and I continue to add resources to it as they are relevant to the Sustainable Lives idea.

A lot of people wonder how this is any different from any other organization that does the same sorts of things.

My primary interest is not to replace already existing entities or replicate what other people have already done. I want to fill in the gaps so that those who have no faith in traditional education or occupations can learn, grow and create their own. I want to help solve some of the social problems that exist by creating organizational systems which people can interact with for free. I want to make these free organizational systems financially solvent through carefully structuring the entire organizational entity.

In all honesty, what sets this Sustainable Lives apart from other organizations is that it will do what it does and it will be financially solvent without much outside funding.

I needed to come up with an idea that would make funding possible without the aid of society at large or government because there is an over all lack of value for the poor: both in pocket and in spirit.

So, what sets this idea apart: why is it so difficult to figure out? It’s hard because I’m trying to set up a business which solves social needs and big problems like poverty without leaning on traditional non-profit business structures. I’m trying to create an organization that fills some social needs in ways traditional non-profit agencies can’t and solve some of the underlying issues which create harmful societal issues like drug addiction.

This is a work in process because it isn’t just recreating something that exists, it is creating something that already exists in completely different ways.

Book: The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters by Tom Nichols…

I’ve added this book to the SPARK resources because it talks about some of the pitfalls which can negatively impact the advancement of learning. It also illuminates the rarity of a self taught expert.

SPARK was an idea I hoped would help people with limited direction explore themselves, their dreams, their aspirations and build skills which would help them get to where they were going. I think there is a lot of disdain for higher educational facilities and I myself have often felt that disdain.

My own disdain comes from issues of conscious. I struggled with the idea of how institutions of learning propagate ideas which continue to build a society in which my conscious has no peace.

Over years and years of self study, I’ve learned the importance of institution in the development of individuals, learning, and most importantly peer review, which allows for new thoughts and ideas (if they are new at all) to be challenged and honed.

Education is one of the most important requirements for overcoming poverty; this is true for both poverty in physical environment, poverty in mind or poverty of spirit.

As I’ve continued on in my own journey toward developing methods of overcoming poverty, I realize I have fallen back on ideas created by experts in a variety of fields. More importantly I’ve learned that in the process of developing this project, that I have in fact taken on roles similar to traditional training in specific fields.

The system I am attempting to develop may be slightly different from other systems in use today but it will still fall back on traditional institutions of learning for their experts and expertise.

I may formally challenge an idea here or there but in reality the work continues by adding to and challenging the work which has already been done.

What I’ve found in most cases of my study, is that I am more or less working on ways to improve individuals access to institutional programs that already exist.

For those who don’t have a high school diploma the GED (General Education Development) is an available tool. In New York State this is now the TASC. These tests lead to high school equivalency diplomas.

Yet, most individuals do not take the steps to raise themselves out of poverty without the help of a variety of experts. It is rare that a person of their own volition without a great deal of support will grow beyond their state of poverty.

Overcoming poverty is such complicated process we still don’t really know how to do it but there are some hopeful projects in existence like EMPath or Economic Mobility Pathways.

What I have found on my own journey toward a poverty solution, is that my ideas are developed on the back of experts with some real world street level knowledge about how humans function.

Social business was built by a man trained in economics. Mobility Pathways was built by a woman who trained in social work.

SPARK will definitely be part of a system which helps individuals learn and grow given their own proclivities but it won’t upend the institutions of experts, it will just be another tool to help people learn and grow.

In the meantime. The Death Of Expertise remains a very good book which helps emphasize the importance of expertise and why we shouldn’t always recreate the wheel. There is a lot of learning to do before new ideas can be developed or old ideas improved on.

 

Around the year 2005 or 2006 I was working for a non-profit community arts center – The Resonance Center – Founded by Adam Spiridilozzi.

I learned a lot in those two years about non-profit organization, business, art and community.

The Resonance Center caused me to begin thinking about why creatives have a greater difficulty making enough money doing the work they do, and how to solve issues related to housing and food while people develop their work.

The first rendition of Sustainable Lives was My First Name. The idea behind My First Name was to focus on the development of the self rather than the development of self relative to society, class or family.

As time went on I understood that I wanted to give people the ability to bring their dreams into reality in the simplest most functional way possible. But, why don’t people just live their dream?

Somewhat on purpose and somewhat on accident, I began the process of really looking for some answers. Why is society devised in such a way which limits some individuals from living their dreams?

I lived about six years on less than $10,000.00 a year. I was studying the effects of underemployment in a personal way. I am a veteran, so I was also exploring issues of mental health and well fare related to the after affects of war. In those years of poverty I was a cab driver and gaining sociological perspective.

After several years of driving cab, I was no longer able to handle the hypocrisy of the cab system for which I worked. I quit. I lived with my parents for a while. My shoes had holes in them, my pants were shredded and I couldn’t afford to replace my clothes.

What I did have in  those days was what would become my first book. For better or worse, I published it myself. Army Reserve Medic. This book represented the expressions of war and a lead in to this work.

I created a cab company in order to raise myself out of under employment.  This company was my first attempt at a social entrepreneurial endeavor. The company became the first step in testing some of my ideas about how to make small changes to industries which raise the level of health and wellness of employees and customers alike.

Because of Utica Transportation there are a number of other medical transportation companies and transportation providers which are better than those which existed before Utica Transportation. Sometimes, the vacuum created by a better company paves the way to demand better services. I am proud of our impact on the transportation industry even though it was quite a small one.

When I decided to close the company I was on a journey toward health and wellness myself. My martial art instructor was integral to pushing me past where I was and to where I was going next.

I decided to go back to taking care of people which is my preferred work in life. Solid employment with a job which I could tolerate allowed me to rebuild my life and continue to focus working on poverty. This job also enables me to go back to school to get a degree which better allows me to promote the ideas I have been working on for almost a decade.

Sustainable Lives is the outcome of countless hours of research, study, development and practice of ideas. These ideas have been proven in small models to be functional. I will continue to work on building Sustainable Lives while also working on developing the proofs so that we can begin to implement sustainability in our lives from government to organizations to individuals and society as a whole.

Sustainability does not typically change or alter culture or lifestyle, it simply allows us to live healthier lives while leaving less impact on the world around us so that others may also attain health, wellness and satisfaction from their lives.